


Whisper My Name

by your_shade_of_blue



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Because I Know How Much Y’all Like That Shit, Enemies to Friends, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Lawyer Kylo Ren, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-08-08 04:54:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16422773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_shade_of_blue/pseuds/your_shade_of_blue
Summary: The name on her wrist is the key to everything.She's capable of taking care of herself; she’s never had much of a choice, in any case. But she can't help feeling that her entire life is just a prelude to the moment she meets him. Rey has the best possible friends, a fulfilling career, a life of her own—but she's spent that life waiting. For her family. For him.He will give her everything she is missing. She knows because his name is branded on her skin. And if she knows his name, he must know hers.If for no other reason, she has to find him so he can tell her what her name is.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and thank you for taking the time to read this. I've been a lurking shadow in the fandom for a while now, and I've finally worked up the courage to offer something of my own.
> 
> I know that another soulmate's-name-on-your-wrist fic is maybe not what the world needs, but I couldn't resist. Rey and Ben both have such interesting relationships with their names. This seemed like a compelling way to explore that.
> 
> I'd love to hear what you guys think. Let me know what you liked, of course, but also let me know what you didn't. I want to hear what you really think, and I hope we can have some interesting discussions about these characters, their relationship, and how all of that translates in the context of this fic.
> 
> Again, thanks for taking this ride with me. I’ll try to make it a good one.

Prelude

* * *

 

Rey started checking the inside of her left wrist every day when she was twelve.

She knew, even then, that she was too young for her mark to appear. His name would not be visible on her skin until her sixteenth birthday, and while she knew she was not yet that old, she could not say for certain what her age actually was. Her birthday was merely an estimate, assigned to her after the search for her parents—or, at the very least, for a record of her birth—proved fruitless.

As a result, she was unwilling to take even the slightest risk of missing the day her skin revealed her destiny. It was a milestone in any young person’s life, but it was especially significant to Rey: she would get a glimpse of her future, yes, but she would also get a piece of her past. In an instant, she would know her birthday, her real birthday, as well as the name of the person who would care enough to celebrate it.

So it was little wonder that she peeled back the bandages around her wrist the moment after she woke up and the moment before she went to sleep and every free moment in between. It would have been easier to see it appear if she covered her wrist only after the manifestation of her mark, as was customary, but she wanted to make sure she was the first one to see it. This was hers and hers alone. It meant something.

It meant _everything_.

He would love her. They were soulmates, after all, so that much was obvious. She clung to the promise of it when she felt like she would drown without something to hold onto. When the kids at school made fun of her for her threadbare, grease-stained, three-sizes-too-big clothes, she yearned for the person who would see who she was beneath them, who would love her for the person beneath the cloth and the skin. When Plutt’s Christmas gift to her was the opportunity to work extra hours in the junkyard over the school holiday— _again_ —she warmed herself with the thought of sitting next to him in front of a fire, surrounded by a family whose faces she could not imagine, the feeling of _home_ thrumming in her veins like the song of Orpheus.

Rey yearned for the love that was promised to her, but she also yearned for all the other things he could give. His name would be printed on her wrist, and that meant that her name would be printed on his. And that meant that, when she found him, she would finally know her name.

She knew her name was Rey, of course, but maybe that was a nickname, short for Rachel or Reagan or something like that. Regardless, it was her last name that captivated her imagination. If she knew her last name, she could find her family.

He, whoever he was, was the key to everything. Rey was sure he would love her, even if she could not imagine what that would actually be like. Rey was also sure her parents loved her—they were probably looking for her right at that very moment—and he would bring her back to them. He would make all the broken pieces of her life fit back together.

By the time her sixteenth birthday arrived, the bandages around her wrist were limp and frayed from constantly being pulled. When she saw the inky black script peeking above the edge of the fabric, she figured she must be hallucinating. After so much time spent waiting, finally being confronted with the object of her desires was dizzying and exhilarating and terrifying. She stared at her own skin without blinking, without even daring to move. If this was a dream, she wanted to linger in it.

The mark did not disappear. When she blinked to clear her suddenly blurry vision, his name was still there.

_Benjamin_ _Solo_.

She silently tested the shape of his name in her mouth. She wanted to say it aloud—wanted to scream it—but the last thing she needed was to alert Unkar Plutt and his cronies that her path away from them was now a little more clear.

So she went back to work, and at night, alone on her cot, she traced her fingers across the skin of her wrist and wondered if he could somehow feel it too, wherever he was. If he ran his fingers over her name, if he said it to himself just to taste it on his tongue, if he stared at the letters in the moonlight.

He would find her. Maybe he was already looking for her. Maybe he hadn’t found her yet for the same reason her parents hadn’t: because the name she was given when she entered government custody was not the name printed on his skin. Maybe his search for the girl with an unknown name had already led him to her parents—why had the thought never occurred to her before?—and they were searching for her together. They were out there. They were looking for her. They would find her. They had to.

All she had to do now was wait. But she had always been good at waiting.

* * *

Present Day

* * *

 

There are a little more than three dozen employees at The Resistance. The office in Raddus Tower is open and roomy, but that does not mean it is large. It is so small, in fact, that the sound of screaming from the conference room fills the entire space with little impediment.

Then again, Rey is sure the sound would not have the slightest trouble filling even a much larger space.

She rolls her chair just far enough to lean into Finn’s workstation. He, like everyone else, has diverted his attention away from his work in order to stare at the closed door of the conference room.

“What’s going on?” In response to the question, Finn only shrugs his shoulders. The yelling is slightly muffled by the walls of the conference room, and Rey can only make out a few stray words: fuck, authority, fuck, delusional, derivitive, fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

“Kylo Ren.”

“I should have guessed,” she says. “I thought he wasn't supposed to come in until later this week?”

“Guess he couldn’t wait. Must have heard how irresistable I am.” She rolls her eyes in response, and across the table, Rose barks a laugh.

“I so wanted to see his grand entrance," Rey continues. "Was he as frightening as everyone says?”

After it was settled that the legal representatives for The Resistance and First Order Industries would meet on the former’s territory, the infamous Kylo Ren became the preeminent topic of office gossip. The fact that he was the human manifestation of evil was more or less obvious: as Snoke’s chief advisor and right hand man, it was unthinkable that he should be anything else. But office gossip also informed Rey that he was strange in appearance—“Like a villain out of a children’s story,” Rose had said—and in possession of an explosive temper. While she can not yet confirm the former, the latter, at least, seems true enough.

“He’s huge. And he walks kind of hunched over—” Finn pulls his shoulders forward and twists his face into an exaggerated sneer—“so Snap pretty much nailed it.” Rey glances across the table to see Snap raising his fist in a victorious gesture. His description of Kylo Ren had certainly been the most interesting: “He’s like Frankenstein, except faster and scarier, and dressed like Dracula, and I think he might _actually_ be part werewolf.”

In the present, Rey says: “A monster, then.”

“And you were too busy hiding in the stairs to see it,” Finn says as he shakes his head in feigned disappointment. Rey rolls her eyes again and pushes her chair back in front of her own computer.

The yelling quiets, then picks up again, and Rey thinks she might hear the sound of something shattering. She'll be so disappointed if it's one of the beautiful glass vases that decorate the conference room; she grew the plants in them herself, and the idea that anything might have happened to one of them makes her entire body tense.

The novelty of Kylo Ren’s outburst wears off quickly enough, and the office reverts to a steady hum of printers and keyboards and hushed conversation. Rey is at the copier when the conference room door slams open. She may have missed his entrance, but she has a front row seat for his departure.

The first thing she notices is how dark he is: his suit and shirt and tie are all pure, inky black, the shade so deep it seems to swallow the glow of the fluorescent lights that buzz overhead. His skin seems almost white in contrast, and Rey is suddenly surprised that Snap did not include a comparison to a ghost in his description.

What she will remember long after this moment, though, are his eyes. They are dark and cold, and when they flick across her as he marches to the door, they seem to look right through her. His steps are heavy, each foot supporting his entire weight in turn, and Rey wonders how it is possible for someone to have such an immense physical presence and yet seem to be entirely disconnected from the world around them.

She doesn't realize she's been staring at the spot where he disappears through the main door until Poe leans against the doorframe of the conference room and clears his throat. He's grinning in that mischievous way of his, and Rey might have been surprised at his ability to smile after whatever happened in the conference room if Poe was anyone else.

“That went well,” he says. “Better than expected, actually.”

There are a few chuckles in response, and Rey grins despite herself. The excitement of Kylo Ren’s appearance had eventually turned to anxiety as the hours passed without any sign of the men inside (save the occasional burst of yelling, of course). Kaydel had ventured in at one point only to emerge a moment later, visibly shaken. Whatever tension lingers after Kylo Ren’s departure dissipates with Poe’s sly humor and easy smile, and Rey wonders, not for the first time, how it is possible for so much charm to be contained in one person.

Rey abandons the copier to peek into the conference room and assess the damage. The fragments of a blue vase are scattered across the floor, and a gap in the row of plants along the windows advertises the loss.

“Not the sage,” Rey whines. Poe laughs, and Rey turns to glare at him.

“Sorry—sorry,” he chokes. “You have no idea how hard it was to keep from laughing when that happened. Ren stood up and was flinging his arms around, and of course he eventually hit something. Took the wind right out of his sails. He was so surprised, and then he was staring at the pieces of the vase, and he was so _confused_ —” Poe barks another laugh. “You should have seen his _face_. I swear to God, Rey, you're a fucking genius for that… that water stuff.”

Rey rolls her eyes, but the sting of the gesture is softened by the smile that blooms across her face.

“Hydroponics,” she says. “I’m glad to have been of service. You know everything I do is for your benefit.”

“That’s my girl,” he says, and he claps her on the shoulder as he turns to leave. She is left alone, staring into the empty room at the vase that is beyond saving and the tangled roots of the plant that might not be.

***

She gets to work late the next week when one of her classes runs long. Even though she called for the elevator to be held as she ran through the lobby, she almost refuses to get in when she sees who is inside.

The first few floors pass in silence. It would probably be wise to endure the rest of the ride the same way. Rey can't bring herself to care.

“You almost killed the sage,” she says. His eyes snap towards her, and he seems almost surprised to see her staring back at him. At least having to look so far up to meet his gaze gives a defiant jut to her chin.

“I—what?”

“The sage,” she repeats more slowly. “You almost killed it when you knocked over that vase last time you were here.”

“You're with the Resistance.”

“Yes.”

“And… you're accosting me in an elevator… about a plant.”

“My plant. That I grew. In that vase.”

“It's just a plant.”

“It's not just a—ugh! You could at least try to be considerate,” she snaps.

“Aren’t plants supposed to grow in dirt?”

“It's called hydroponics. Also, that isn't what this conversation is about.”

“This isn't a conversation at all, but even if it was, it's over now.”

“No, it’s not,” she huffs, but then the elevator chimes as the doors open. There’s a hint of a smirk on his lips, and she wants to punch it right off his stupid fucking face. “Just try to be more careful,” she says as she rushes past him.

Poe is standing at the front desk, talking to Kaydel and eating the candy they leave out for visitors, when Rey comes barreling through the door.

“Hey!” he says with a smile that dims when he glances to her. “What's up?”

Rey jerks her head back to the door, and it opens on cue.

“Ah,” Poe says as Rey passes. “Just the man I wanted to see! And I see you’ve met Rey, our office’s very own ray of sunshine.” Rey nearly snorts; she's friendly enough, at least to most people, but Finn and Poe only ever call her “sunshine” ironically.

“So _that’s_ Rey,” he says, and she wonders what he could possibly mean by that. “Might want to keep a leash on her. Antagonizing the opposition isn't always a great strategy.”

She could keep walking to her station. She's already halfway there, and it would certainly be the wise thing to do.

Well. It's too late for that today, anyway.

She turns, looks him straight in the eye, and flashes him her middle finger. Maybe she would be more averse to _antagonizing_ him if that wasn't obviously Poe’s objective, anyway.

“What?” she hears Poe say with exaggerated disbelief. “Darling Rey? Surely there must be some kind of misunderstanding.” She turns, walks to the far side of the room, and drops her backpack next to her chair. When she looks up after settling in, Kylo Ren’s eyes are still trained on her. “Now why don't we step into the conference room,” Poe continues. “Unless you'd like to stand here and talk some more about how Rey hurt your feelings?”

Ren finally looks away so he can glare at Poe. “She didn't—oh Jesus fuck, Dameron, let's just get this over with.”

They disappear into the conference room, and Rey has to explain what happened in the elevator at least half a dozen times while the legal representatives for the Resistance and First Order are sequestered.

She's at the copier again when the conference room door opens, and Poe comes out first this time. Kylo Ren follows a moment later, his eyes narrowing slightly when he sees Rey.

“Asshole,” she mutters. It isn't her intention for him to hear, but the way he stops walking, the way his eyes narrow even further—obviously he has, in fact, heard her.

“Actually,” he says, “I think I forgot something in the conference room.”

He disappears, and then there is the sound of something shattering.

***

Rey devises numerous plans for the next time she meets him. If she is at her desk, she will ignore him entirely, if for no other reason than she knows he won't be expecting it. He seems willing enough to engage in confrontation, so best to keep him on his toes. She knows she won't be able to manage silence if they meet in the elevator again, so she fantasizes about all the ways she could give him a piece of her mind. She even begins keeping a list of her better one-liners so she won't forget.

She does not have a plan for if she next sees Kylo Ren in the stairwell, but that is what happens.

She sits on a step above the landing, leaning against the cool metal railing. Everything is beige, which Rey normally hates, but it's kind of nice to have a space that asserts its emptiness so unabashedly. The stairwell is always empty, but Rey makes sure to cry quietly regardless; the sound travels. She is used to crying quietly, anyway.

The door opens, and Rey wipes her hands over her face. She expects to see Finn or Poe or maybe Rose when she opens her eyes again, but of course, _of_ _course_ it has to be Kylo Ren. As if she hasn't had a bad enough day already.

Neither of them move as the door shuts behind him with a heavy, metallic _thud_. This is where she should put one of her scathing remarks to good use. She doubts there would be much sting to it, with her looking like this. Her eyes are red, and she can feel the tear tracks burning lines down her face. It's too late to pretend she hasn't seen him, even if the possibility is only wishful thinking; he's staring at her, and she's staring back, and she can't quite manage to tear her eyes away from his.

He reaches into his pocket, steps toward her and extends his hand. She stares at the handkerchief dangling in front of her for a moment too long, as if she can't quite figure out what it is or what she is supposed to do with it. Finally, she lifts her fingers to grip the edge of it, and when he drops it, it falls across her hand in gentle waves.

Neither of them speak as he turns, rounds the landing, and starts down the stairs. His steps are loud at first. They grow quieter as he approaches the ground floor, but they do not disappear completely. This place is so empty, and the metal and stone reflect every sound. She can hear the steady beat of his steps even after a door far below her opens and closes.

***

She considers keeping the handkerchief. It may just be a little scrap of fabric, but it is easily nicer than any of her clothes (and probably just as easily more expensive). Unfortunately, there is a monogram embroidered in the corner in blocky letters, and those are not her initials. That should hardly make a difference—she's used to adopting other people’s things as her own—but the last thing she wants is a constant reminder of the person to whom those initials belong.

Especially when his meetings with Poe are set to become more frequent. Poe takes a sickening sort of glee in the amount of time he spends with Kylo Ren—“Do you know how much they pay him?” he asked the gaggle of Resistance employees who circled around him to hear his battle stories. “Neither do I. But I’m sure it’s a lot. It must cost the First Order hundreds of dollars every time I step out to take a piss.”

Of course, the fact that Poe insists on completing their business in person instead of over email or telephone does not leave the Resistance entirely unscathed. Kylo Ren is quite the distraction.

Especially to Rey, who finds her thoughts drifting to him even when he is not at Resistance headquarters. They have so far avoided any more explosive confrontations, but Rey cannot quite specify what it is that has replaced them. What they have now can hardly be called interaction at all. They make eye contact once, maybe twice as he walks to and from the conference room. She never knows what to make of his expression. It’s like he is constantly on the cusp of saying something, even though her workstation is at the far end of the room.

The handkerchief has been burning a hole in her pocket for almost a week when she slips out of the office as Poe and Kylo Ren are concluding their meeting. She waits in the stairwell, pacing with nervous energy. This place has always been something of a sanctuary to her. She hates him a little for invading it and… and ruining it.

She turns to the door when she hears it open. The grimace on his face flickers away, replaced by surprise. As if she is the interloper in his space.

“Hi.” She pulls the handkerchief out of her pocket and holds it in front of her. “I thought you might like this back.”

“Thanks,” he says. He doesn’t move, so she extends her arm a little further, glancing from him to the handkerchief. He seems to snap out of whatever trance he is in after a long moment, shaking it off himself with a shudder. “Right,” he says as he reaches forward to take it.

Something shifts when his skin brushes hers. There’s something strange, something different about him, what is it, _what_ _is_ _it_ —

“You aren’t wearing your jacket,” she says. He looks a little more relaxed like this; or he would, if his face didn’t immediately twist into a scowl again.

“Poe spilled his drink on me.”

Ah. So _that’s_ what today’s string of expletives had been.

It also explains the stain blooming across the front of his shirt. How had she not noticed that before?

“Don’t take it personally,” she says. “He got me my third day here.”

“Noted.”

But that isn’t it, the jacket. There’s something else.

She suddenly notices that he’s larger than she expected. She figured at least the shoulders of his suit jackets must be padded or something, but his crisp white shirt (rendered only mostly crisp and mostly white by Poe) makes him seem even larger, if anything. The sleeves of the shirt are pushed up to his elbow, his handkerchief drapedin his right hand, his jacket in his left—

Oh.

“You don’t…” she begins, but she trails off when she realizes how rude she is being. Heat rises in her cheeks. But he sees where she’s looking, at that exposed left wrist, and her meaning is just as clear as if she had completed the thought aloud.

“No, I don’t keep it covered,” he says. He twists his hand to flash his wrist towards her. She squints to read the letters there, but her eyes widen when she realizes the skin is bare. “Nothing to hide.”

He doesn’t sound embarrassed or affronted by her rudeness. If anything, he seems entirely indifferent to what is on his wrist—what isn’t on it—and to Rey’s interest in it.

“Ah,” she says to fill the silence, but she can’t imagine how to continue. She knows that some people don’t have a mark; it’s rare, but their existence is no secret. Now that one of those unmatched people is in front of her, though, she can’t think of anything to say.

I’m sorry?

That sucks?

I would hate to be you, because even when I had nothing, at least I had this?

Well. She can think of things to say, but nothing that isn’t totally offensive.

“Thanks for this,” he says, lifting the handkerchief. She starts, her eyes snapping to the white cloth as it sways in his hand. He stuffs it into his pocket as he turns to the path down.

“Thanks for… thanks,” she finishes lamely, but he’s already making his way down the stairs, and he doesn’t look back.

She had planned to go back to her desk after returning his handkerchief, but she stays in the stairwell for a long time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends. Thank you for your kudos, comments, bookmarks, and subscriptions. They mean the world to me.
> 
> This update comes a little later than I intended. I'm the type who has to meticulously plan every detail before starting something, and this fic was actually intended to be my experiment with a new way of doing things. I actually have a few stories I've been sitting on for months (the analysis paralysis is real, folks), so I thought trying something different might be a good way to get something out there and finished so I would have the confidence to deal with those other stories.
> 
> But alas, you cannot change what you are. I had a plan going into this, but it wasn't as fleshed out as I normally like. I've spent the time between the first chapter and now settling on a more definite path forward and writing some key scenes for future chapters. Updates should therefore come more quickly as we move forward.
> 
> Also, I was busy preparing for my vacation and traveling. Australia is beautiful. I'm really enjoying my time here, and I hope being on vacation will give me time to churn out another couple of chapters before I go.
> 
> Without further ado: here's chapter two.

“Were you making fun of me?”

It was only a matter of time before they met again, and in that time, Rey’s mind has revisited their previous interactions on a near-constant loop. She had thought it was concern she saw in his eyes when he handed her the handkerchief, but surely that was… impossible. As she replayed the scene in her memory, she saw his face etched with amusement, then cold judgment, then disgust, until she couldn’t possibly say what it was she had actually seen.

“As much as I enjoy talking to you,” he says, “you’re going to have to start letting me know what we’re actually talking about.”

There is amusement in his voice now, or something like it. If that wasn’t enough to answer her question, the irony of his words surely would be. They haven’t talked much at all, and their brief conversations could hardly be considered _enjoyable_.

“Right,” she says through a growing knot in her throat. She doesn’t continue, and he doesn’t say anything, and she expects that to be the end of it. She waits for him to turn and leave, but he does not move.

“What do you mean? What would I have made fun of you for?” To his credit, he seems genuinely confused. Rey wonders, for a brief moment, if maybe he really is confused. Then, something else blooms across his face, something that looks like genuine hurt. Before she can make sense of it, it is gone, and his neutral expression makes him seem distant even though his eyes have never left hers. “You think I offered you something of my own out of… ridicule? Derision? Is that it?”

“You can’t expect me to believe you were just being nice, before.”

“You’re right,” he says flatly. “I guess I couldn’t expect you to believe that.”

He looks away, and the space around her suddenly feels larger, and she suddenly feels very small. She’s standing in an almost-empty stairwell, accusing a man who must be about ten years her senior of… what? Acting like a schoolyard bully?

“It’s just,” she says finally, “it was kind of strange, is all. Especially since you left without saying anything. I didn’t know what to think.”

“I didn’t think you'd accept anything more,” he says simply.

It had not, until that very moment, even occurred to her that he might be capable of giving more. But for all the talk of him being a monster, he is, after all, still a person. He must have people he loves. He must have people who love him.

“I suppose you’re right,” she says. And then, in a lighter tone, praying it will dissipate the suffocating tension between them: “As much as it pains me to say that.”

That same half-smirk from the elevator pulls at one side of his mouth. It’s slightly less infuriating, this time.

“You’ll get used to it,” he says.

“Oh, sod off,” she snaps, but there’s no venom in her voice. “The only time you’ll hear me say that again is in your dreams.”

“We’ll see.”

That is how it begins.

***

“Ah, Rey,” Poe says as he perches on the edge of the table in front of her, a thick, letting-sized envelope resting in his lap. He rests a hand on it and drums his fingers against the smooth surface as he considers her. “I was just thinking about you, and here you are. Amazing.”

“This is where I work,” she says. “Every day.”

“And so it is. How’s that going for you, by the way? You like your coworkers? How’s the coffee?”

She knows Poe. She knows that he hugs everyone when he’s drunk, and that he’s insanely good at skee-ball, and that the children all flock to him at company parties. She knows that he was so eager to find Jessika when her name appeared on his wrist that he skipped school for two weeks to drive all the way to Dandoran.

She knows the way he acts when he’s about to ask for something. He’s a direct sort of person, at least when it comes to most things. If he’s about to ask for something big, though…

She eyes the envelope in his lap warily.

“What do you want, Poe?”

“Okay, fine, you caught me,” he says. He winks, letting her know that he’s been in on the joke of his own transparency the entire time. Poe more than wears his heart on his sleeve; it’s like a badge, or a medal, or a giant neon sign. Rey wonders if he could be any other way even if he tried. “Leia sent some documents for her brother,” Poe continues. “He’s kind of an off-the-grid type, so they need to be delivered in person. You seemed like a good fit for the job.”

“Why don’t we just post it?”

“Well, we tried that. He hasn’t exactly been responsive. Which is a real shame, because Leia’s a bit desperate for his help. But who could possibly say no to you? Thought the wunderkid might be able to pull him back into the real world.”

“You’re just trying to flatter me so I’ll say yes,” she grumbles.

“Is it working?”

“Do I even have a right to say no?”

“Not really.”

“Guess I’ll do it, then.”

Poe lifts the envelope and presents it with a flourish. “Knew I could count on you,” he says as he hops off the edge of the table, claps her on the back, and begins walking away. She glances at the folder; the name _Luke Skywalker_ is printed in blocky text, followed by an address.

“Poe!” She shouts at his back. “It’s going to take half a day just to get there!”

“Which is why you have the whole day,” he calls over his shoulder.

“I hate you!”

He doesn’t stop walking as he turns around and blows her a kiss. She pretends to catch it and throw it across the table at Snap, who scrunches his face in disgust as he rubs his cheek.

***

Rey might not be able to understand why Luke Skywalker refuses to answer his sister, but she has no trouble understanding why he has chosen to hole himself up in Ahch-to. The lush green that blankets the seaside town is interrupted only where the soil has been brushed away to reveal ancient stone. As Rey nears the ocean, the green becomes sparser until only stray tufts of grass and moss pepper the edges of the cliffs.

Rey has seen pictures of the ocean. Back in Jakku, she once found a book about the beaches of Spira, the kind of book other people might set on a coffee table and never even open. Instead, she had ripped the pages out and taped them to her bedroom wall, where she sometimes imagined they were windows. But standing at the edge of a cliff in Ahch-to, with waves crashing far below her, Rey decides this view is infinitely more magnificent.

She could easily stay rooted to this exact spot for the entire day. There is a job to do, though, so she turns away from the cliffs and the waves and the ocean to find Luke Skywalker.

It turns out to be easy enough despite the fact that the GPS on her phone is little help. Ahch-to is a town only in the sense that it might have been one, once. Now, its stone buildings lie vacant. If Luke Skywalker has not disappeared into the wilderness, he must be in the temple nestled in the hills, and the temple is where she finds him.

It is constructed of the same stone as the surrounding cliffs and outcroppings, with a door made of wood that has been faded and splintered by temperamental weather. Rey tries the knocker set into the middle of the door, and then, when there is no answer, she tries again.

“Hello?” She calls as she pushes the door open, but even this does not earn an answer. There is a narrow table pressed against the wall next to the door, covered in candles that must have been used at some point, judging by the dried globs of wax dripping down their sides, but are now covered in dust. On the wall above the table, soft light glows from a row of lanterns. This is all the invitation she needs to venture further and shut the door behind her.

“Mr. Skywalker?”

The row of lanterns continues across the walls that form the sides of the room adjacent to the entrance, and as she steps forward, Rey realizes that the lights illuminate mosaics that span the entire length of the walls. At her left is a meditating figure, cast half in darkness and half in light, framed by a similarly divided circle. The image is set against a backdrop of intricate black and white swirls that extend to the edges of the wall—possibly even beyond, if the pattern continues around the corner and into the corridor at the far end of the room.

She turns to look at the opposite wall. The opposite image had been only dimly familiar, like a distant dream or forgotten memory, but this one is immediately recognizable to her. There is the same sea of swirling tendrils, but this time they surround not one figure but three: one white, one black, and, cradled between them, a smaller form of gray. As she approaches the wall, additional details become clear: the perfect symmetry of the parents’ arms as they hold their child; the way the two larger forms curve into one another at the bottom curve of the design so that it seems that each disappears into the other; the angle of each head towards the other two.

“Those are as old as anything in this place,” a voice says behind her.

Luke does not look quite as she expected him to. He wears a brown robe draped over a tan tunic and pants, and his beard and hair are messy waves of brown and gray. Now that she has seen him, she cannot for the life of her remember what she had imagined before.

“Hello,” she says.

“I take it you’re not from around here,” he says. “Then again, nobody much is.”

“Your sister Leia sent me,” Rey says as she crosses the distance between them. She holds the envelope out to him, but he does not move to take it. After several long moments, she says, “I came all this way. The least you can do is take it.”

“You shouldn’t have come. Leave, and do not bother me with this again. Leia knows where I stand.”

With that, he turns and begins to walk away.

“I’m leaving this here,” she calls to his back. When she is alone again, she marches to the table next to the door and drops the envelope next to the forgotten candles. The white envelope glows with the light of the lanterns above, and she looks one last time towards the far end of the room, where twin beams of light spill from the corridors at the corners.

Temples are supposed to be sites of community and connection, but Rey wonders how long it has been since another soul even entered this place. It’s in decent enough shape, but that seems to be more due to stable construction and minimal use than the careful attentions of a caretaker.

Luke has made it clear enough that her presence is nothing to him; he will not be bothered, then, if she looks around a bit.

She takes the corridor opposite the one Luke went down, brushing her fingers against the mosaic of the Whispering as she passes. There is a turn in the hallway almost before Rey can take even two steps, and as she turns, she is surprised to discover that the light she saw spilling from the hallways come not from lanterns but from the sun.

A row of pillars rises to her left, defining the barrier between the stone path beneath her and the courtyard. Vines climb the pillars and spill across the stone path. A few small trees are visible above sprawling bushes, their tangled branches reaching towards a clouded sun. The garden, if it can even be called one, is a mess of tangled shades of green.

Luke finds her after what must be several hours, a pile of leaves and roots at her feet.

“What are you doing?” He asks.

“What are you doing, is the better question. This garden is overrun with weeds. You’re lucky I got here before they strangled everything entirely.”

“I like it like this,” he huffs. “It… represents the chaos of nature.”

“You literally just made that up.”

“Weeds are just plants people don’t like. Who am I to say what can grow here and what can’t?”

“Aren’t you the keeper of this temple?”

“Yes. Well.” He shrugs dismissively, and she returns to yanking at the weeds sprouting around her. “Shouldn’t you be using gloves?”

“I couldn’t find any garden tools. I don’t suppose you would know where they might be, either, considering the state of this place. I can manage the small ones just fine, anyway,” she says as she continues, not bothering to turn to him as she speaks. “I will need my gloves and tools for the bigger things, though.”

“Nothing to do about it now, in any case. There’s a storm coming in. You should head out before it gets here.”

“Fine,” she answers as she drops a final weed onto the pile and rubs her hands on her pants. The air here is still and sticky; she is not used to working in the humidity, so her body feels sweaty and heavy even in the cool weather. Besides, Finn doesn’t call Rey’s car a _rust bucket_ for nothing. She hardly needs to risk adding to any of its problems. “I’m coming back to finish this, though.”

“I don’t suppose I can stop you.”

“I don’t suppose you can.”

And that is how her time with Luke begins.

***

“Why do you always take the stairs?”

“Some people like the stairs,” he says from his place across her, where he leans against the wall. “I’m not one of them, but… you know, some people. Since I don’t have time to go to the gym, this is my best option.”

“And yet,” she says, “you’re just standing here. If you’re going to insist on sticking around for so long, you should at least do some lunges or something.”

“That would defeat the purpose of my currently avoiding the hike down.”

“The mighty Kylo Ren, paralyzed with fright by a few stairs.” She shakes her head and titters. “What would the world think, if they knew?” He huffs a breath and crosses his arms across his chest.

“Speaking of people who don’t move in the stairs,” he says, “why do you always seem to be sitting around in here?”

She considers the peeling paint on the railing next to her and absentmindedly brushes her fingers across it. The rough edges of the paint chips are barely visible, since nothing is revealed beneath. There is only beige on beige on beige.

“It’s quiet,” she says. “Or it was, before you came and ruined it.”

She glances towards him. He’s looking down, running his own knuckles against the paint on the wall behind him. He looks up to meet her eyes, and she can see that behind them, he is struggling with the question of how to interpret her words.

Then she smiles. The corners of his own lips curve, and it isn’t a smile, not really, but it’s close.

“Fair enough,” he says. He doesn’t continue, and by the time she thinks to speak herself, the silence has stretched between them for too long. She is used to being here in quiet stillness—it is her escape, her sanctuary. Now, it only makes her uncomfortable.

“I grew up in the middle of nowhere,” she says. Her voice is quiet, but it easily pierces the silence regardless. “I never really got used to being around other people. Sometimes I can’t really think, in there.” She nods toward the door. “So if there’s something I’m trying to think through, I like to sit in here until I’ve found my answer. Nobody really minds, since I always know what to do when I get back.”

The silence falls between them again as he considers her.

“What is it you’re trying to think through, now?” He asks.

And just like that, the moment is shattered.

“I’m not very high up in the company,” she says as she tears her gaze away from his. “In fact, I’m the most recent hire. And I’m still in school. So if you’re trying to spy on The Resistance, you might want to pick somebody else.”

She stands and heads for the door, but when she passes close to him, a hand wraps around her wrist. She looks down to where his fingers circle her bandages before looking up to his face. She knows there is fire in her eyes, but in his, she finds something else. There is vulnerability in them, and it mirrors what she felt only a moment before, when she was confessing the secret part of herself she keeps in these walls.

“I promise I didn’t mean it like that,” he says softly. “I forgot myself. I just wanted… I just wanted to know… I wasn’t trying to use you, Rey. I—I’m sorry.”

It was a risk, all along. She shouldn’t have started talking to him, and after she started, she shouldn’t have continued. First Order seems to be coming at The Resistance from all angles, and here, in front of her, stands the man at the forefront of the assault. She has no reason to trust him.

No reason except the sincerity in his eyes. It isn’t enough to hold against the threat of losing The Resistance. She knows what that would mean for herself, for her friends—for the world.

But she knows those eyes. They aren’t the eyes of a monster.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay,” she says. “I believe you.”

***

“Does Kylo Ren seem a little… I don’t know, less _Kylo Ren_ to you guys?” Finn asks as he stares at the closed door of the conference room. Rose, Snap and Rey follow his gaze, as if expecting to receive an answer from the one part of the office that is currently closed to them. There is only silence.

Which wouldn’t be strange, under normal circumstances. But Kylo Ren and Poe are behind that door, and that makes the silence very strange indeed.

“He does seem less…” Rose begins, but the thought seems to evaporate before she can finish it.

“No telling with that one,” Snap says. “Give it a few minutes. Calm before the storm, I figure.”

But the next sound they hear from the conference room is its door opening as Kylo Ren and Poe emerge. They walk to the entrance of the office, and as they do, Kylo Ren turns his head in Rey’s direction. Her tablemates are all watching the procession, so they don’t see her gesture to her computer and shrug.

When Rey turns to Finn after the front door opens and closes, his gaze is still fixed on the place where Kylo Ren disappeared.

“Strange,” he mutters to himself. “Strange.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to sincerely apologize for the delay. I've had a few health crisises that have consumed all of my attention and energy. Your comments and kudos have meant so, so much to me through this time. Thank you all for your support and patience.

There is a huge bouquet of roses on the desk Rey shares with Finn, Rose and Snap. The bouquet is so huge, in fact, that it entirely dominates Rose’s corner of the table and spills into the territories of her deskmates. If the placement of the bouquet wasn’t enough to reveal its recipient, the expression on Rose’s face certainly would be—and there is little question whom it is from, judging by the expression on Finn’s.

“These are gorgeous,” Rey says as she lifts her fingers to brush against the petals of one of the flowers. Rey isn’t sure it’s even possible, but Rose seems to smile a little wider. “What’s the occasion?”

“It’s her birthday,” Finn answers jovially.

“Oh,” Rey squeaks. “I’m really sorry, Rose. I thought your birthday was in March. Let me take you out to dinner sometime this week to celebrate.”

“My birthday is in March,” Rose says. “This is my other birthday. Or at least that’s what Finn likes to call it.”

“Right,” Rey says, suddenly feeling on edge. She knows that Finn had not been welcomed into the world and given a name by his parents; he only had a number, assigned to him by the army that raised him to be a soldier. It was Poe who brought Finn to the Resistance and gave him his name. A name that then appeared on Rose’s wrist.

This was that day, then; if the name on your wrist appears on your birthday, the sudden appearance of a name on Rose’s wrist would seem like a second birthday. It’s sweet, really. Rey should be happier about the occasion than she is.

Rey shakes off her discomfort and smiles. There’s no reason for her to be upset by the circumstances if Finn and Rose aren’t. The fact that he can turn something so traumatic into something to be celebrated is a testament to the strength of his spirit. Rey is lucky, she thinks, to have friends like this.

Even so, she can’t completely relax the tension in her shoulders as she brushes her fingers against the petals again.

***

“Of course you would think that,” she says. “You’re evil. Mew-two is evil. It’s a match made in heaven.”

“All I’m saying is that Mew-two was designed to be more powerful. There really isn’t a competition.”

“But Mew has real power,” Rey says defiantly. “The kind of power that comes from being good.”

He scoffs at that. He looks like a child when he shakes his head like that. And they’re acting like children, arguing over Pokémon in the stairwell when both of them should really be working. She doesn’t even remember how they got started on this topic.

He opens his mouth, but what she hears next is not his voice: there is an inhuman rumbling, and it echoes in the stillness around them. Her arms instinctively wrap around her stomach.

“Are you on lunch?” he asks as he checks his watch.

“Yeah.”

“Do you hang out here because you eat paint chips when nobody’s looking?” He surveys the peeling paint on the walls and railings as if seriously considering the possibility.

“Only when I forget my lunch,” she quips. Which isn't exactly true: she remembered her lunch, but she forgot to pack a snack. Her lunch had therefore become her mid-morning snack, leaving her with nothing to eat for her midday meal.

“How much time do you have?”

She checks her own watch. “About 40 minutes.”

“That's more than enough time to get something,” he says. “If you would like to.” He combs his fingers through his hair. “I know a pretty good place down the street.”

“Pretty sure I could lose my job for fraternizing with the enemy,” she says.

“I don't think anybody will even notice,” he answers. “And if they do, you can just tell them I agreed to listen to you make your case about why First Order is evil and the Resistance is god’s gift to humanity, et cetera, and you will be celebrated as a hero.”

“Or accused of witchcraft.”

“I'll treat.”

She should say no.

“Fine.”

***

Vinny’s is an Italian cafe several blocks down from Raddus Tower. Even if she had ever ventured this far during one of her rare lunches out with her friends, Rey would never have thought of going in. There are white tablecloths draped over each table, and clusters of candles shimmer through the dark glass of the windows.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” She isn't usually one to question whether food of any sort is a good idea—it always is—but this seems a little… much. “I only have half an hour before I need to be back. That's twenty minutes to order and eat.”

“Don't worry about it,” he says as he opens the door, and—if she ever thought she could turn away from this place, she certainly can't now. It smells like bread and olives and tomatoes, and the emptiness in her stomach grows more desperate in response. “They know me here. I never have much time to eat, so they're used to it.”

Sure enough, a waiter comes with an offering of bread even before the one seating them has handed them their menus. She tears a chunk from one of the loaves and drags it through the accompanying dish of seasoned oil.

“Decide what you want first,” he says over his open menu. She instead tears into the steaming bread again.

“I can't stop,” she says through a mouthful. “My body is moving on its own.”

He reaches across the table to flip open her menu, and the cover of the booklet lands on the table with a heavy thwack. It's nothing like the laminated sheets or memo boards she's used to ordering from. This place is a blessing and a curse: even the bread tastes better than almost anything she’s ever eaten, but looking at the menu, she knows she’s never going to be able to afford to eat here again.

She peruses her options as she decimates the entire loaf of bread. Kylo Ren has only managed to get through a piece of the other loaf in the basket, which she stubbornly refuses to think of as his. Even so, she wiggles her fingers to keep them from reaching forward.

“Are you ready to order?” Kylo Ren asks from across the table.

“No,” she says. But then a waiter comes past bearing a tray with dishes of lasagna and salad and the most delectable pasta Rey has ever seen in her entire life. “Yes.”

Kylo Ren turns and raises a few fingers, and another waiter is at their table instantaneously.

“Rey,” he says.

“Can I get that pasta that just went by? Thin noodles, some kind of tomato sauce, and scallops?”

“Of course,” the waiter says. “Our lemon caper pasta is one of my personal favorites. And for you, Mr. Ren?”

“The pasta carbonara,” he says as he hands his menu to the waiter. “And some more bread.”

Rey’s eyes widen. Kylo Ren turns back to her, and one side of his mouth curves into a lopsided smile. He looks younger, like that.

“You can get more?” Rey asks breathlessly.

“You can get as much as you'd like,” he says. “It comes with the meal.” Her eyes snap open even further, and he lets out a quick puff of breath in response. It isn't quite a laugh, but… it's something like it. It hadn't occurred to her that he would be capable of such a sound.

“I'm not waiting, then,” she says as she tears away some of the barely-eaten loaf in the basket. “Now,” she says through a too-big mouthful, “here are all the reasons First Order sucks and The Resistance rules.” She grabs for another piece of bread before she even swallows. “One, you—”

“I wasn't serious,” he says.

“Oh, but I am,” she answers with a wicked grin. “One, you guys sell weapons to militias that use child soldiers.”

“We sell to legitimate governments and military operations,” he says coldly.

“The Resistance works with several organizations that provide escape and rehabilitation to child soldiers. So… no contest, there. Two—”

“For what it's worth,” he says, “I've been trying to convince Snoke to change how certain things work in First Order.”

“Nothing’s changed,” she says, “so that apparently isn't worth a lot.” He recoils as if she has reached across the table to strike him. She feels guilty, for a moment; she doesn't know what things are like at First Order, after all. But she does know something about what things are like in the rest of the world, and she cannot let him flinch away from it.

Still. Maybe he doesn't need to be buried beneath the weight of all his sins at once.

“If you can get all that straightened out,” she says, “maybe I'll let you bring me here for lunch again.”

“How magnanimous of you,” he says dryly.

“What can I say? We all have to make sacrifices if we want the world to be a better place.”

She smiles mischievously. After a moment, he smiles back.

***

The garden at the Ahch-to temple is entirely changed by the time Rey finishes pulling weeds, trimming hedges, and pruning trees.

“You can’t tell me it doesn’t look better,” she says as she stands at the edge of the courtyard with Luke.

“It does,” he says. He takes off his gloves and throws them onto the pile of rusted tools he found in the bowels of the temple. He wipes his brow and brushes the earth from his clothes. “It was fine before, though,” he grunts, and she huffs a sigh in response.

They survey the garden in silence. After a long while, she turns to him and says, “I have really enjoyed my time here. I… feel at peace when I’m here. I would very much like to continue coming.”

“We don’t really have visitors.”

“I cold be an apprentice, of sorts. I don’t want to pursue religious life.” She wraps her fingers around her left wrist. “I have other plans. But I like this place, and I feel calm here. I would like to learn how to take that feeling with me.”

He turns and considers her for a long moment.

“Very well,” he says. “We’ll begin with meditation.”

***

“We should do this every day,” she says through a mouthful of falafel.

“We do do this every day,” he answers flatly as he prepares to take the first bite of his gyro. She is already halfway done with hers.

“No, this specifically. Can we eat this for every meal?”

“You say that every day. No matter where we go.”

She grins as she tears into her sandwich again.

“I can’t help it Everything is so good. Everything is my favorite.”

He smiles then, and if her chewing slows in response as his eyes drop to the curve of her mouth, she tries not to think about what it means. It doesn’t mean anything.

***

“Do you ever wish you had a mark?”

There is something about the stairwell that makes her bold. It has somehow transitioned from her space to their space, and something about that makes her feel exposed. It makes her feel anxious and unsteady, but it also makes her feel safe. It makes her feel brave enough to be vulnerable.

“Not really,” he answers. “It’s better this way.”

Rey can’t imagine a world in which not having a mark would make her life better.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“Nothing to hold me back. I can focus on my work.”

“Right. Someone has to destroy the world, I guess.”

“First Order does good things. You just choose to see the bad.”

For some reason, Rey finds she isn’t particularly interested in pursuing this line of conversation.

“What about you?” he asks, saving her from having to change the subject herself. “You seem like the type to really value marks.”

“I guess I am,” Rey answers. “It might be the most important thing in the world to me.” She glances up at him shyly. It’s not that the mark might be the single most important thing in her life; it is, without question. Admitting that so brazenly, however, is a little more than she can manage. This is vulnerable enough.

“I’m sure Finn really treasures that.”

“What?” She laughs so hard it turns into a cough. “Why would Finn even care?”

“Isn’t he your match?”

“No!”

“Oh.” He considers this for a moment. “Who is, then?”

“I don’t know,” she says softly. “I haven’t found him.”

“What?” He seems genuinely surprised by this information. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“You’ll have a pretty big age gap, then.” Rey hopes so. She hopes it’s just a matter of a large age gap, even though her searches for someone—anyone—with the name Ben Solo have come up empty. She wouldn’t prefer to have a man so much younger than herself, but it’s better than the alternatives. “Do you go on a lot of dates in the meantime, then?”

“I’ve never been on a date.”

“Ah. You’re one of those.”

“One of those? Excuse you.”

“I just mean… it’s a long time to wait.”

“It will be worth it in the end, though.”

“Maybe.” He seems to drift somewhere else. With just the two of them and the beige landscape of the stairwell, the fact that he suddenly seems so distant feels wrong.

Before she can resolve that, however, the door opens.

“Hey, Rey—” Finn stops short. “Oh.”

It was only a matter of time, she suddenly realizes, before someone found them here.

“Hey,” Rey says. Kylo Ren’s footsteps echo against the walls. “What’s up?”

“Hold on. Was that Kylo Ren?”

“Yeah. He takes the stairs sometimes.”

“It’s been half an hour since he left.”

“Maybe he went to the bathroom or something before he passed through here?”

Finn can see the lie. Surely, it must be written all over her face.

“Maybe.” He considers this for a moment. “I didn’t see him come in.”

“You were right behind him.” Her voice is too high. Her cheeks are too warm. One of the drawbacks of growing up away from people is that you never learn to lie.

“If you say so.”

“What did you need, Finn?”

“We thought we’d get the meeting done before lunch. If you’re up to it.”

“Yeah.” She rises from her seat on the stairs and surveys the empty space around her. Then she follows Finn out the door, leaving all of it behind.

***

Rey expected to be better at meditation.

It makes sense, now that she thinks about it. She’s always had trouble quieting her mind. It isn’t unusual for her to lie in bed at night, desperate to sleep, unable to still her mind long enough to drift off.

“You’re improving,” Luke says at the end of one of their sessions.

“I’m not where I’d like to be.”

“It’s only been three weeks,” he says nonchalantly. “Give it time.”

She stretches her arms over her head and heaves a sigh.

“Is Saturday okay again?” She asks.

“I’m afraid I have an engagement with my sister,” he answers, and it sounds like there’s real regret in his voice. Like maybe he enjoys their time together, too. Or maybe he just really doesn’t want to see his sister. “You should join us. She’d love to have you.”

“Are you sure?” Rey has never really been invited to someone’s house. She’s been to the apartment Finn and Rose share, of course, and she’s been by Poe and Jess’s place for a few parties, but never something like this.

“Yeah. It will be… fun.”

“Okay,” she says, a wide smile blooming across her face. “I’ll be there.”

***

The offices of First Order Industries are, Rey has to admit, quite impressive. It’s all sleek glass and glossy black, and everyone Rey passes seems like they would be more at home in the pages of Vogue than in an office.

A man with pale skin, orange hair, and what Rey would guess to be a permanent sneer stops in front of her.

“Can I help you?” he asks with no small amount of condescension. Rey hates him already.

“I’m here to see Kylo Ren.” She lifts the folder in her hands.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No, but he needs these documents.”

They had been left at Resistance headquarters, and Rey had offered to deliver them personally. “That’s probably for the best,” Poe had said. “So I won’t be tempted to peek.”

And that is how Rey finds herself in the belly of the beast.

“I’ll be happy to take them off your hands,” the ginger man answers.

“That won’t be necessary, Hux,” a voice calls from beside them, and Rey turns to see Kylo approaching. “I can receive them myself.”

“Right,” Hux says, his face twisting into an expression of even deeper displeasure. He turns and storms off, and when Rey looks to her side, Kylo is watching the departing figure with a hard expression.

“He seems nice,” Rey says. Kylo is torn from his thoughts, and his expression softens as he looks over to Rey. She’s glad to see him more relaxed now that Hux is gone. “Well, here you go.”

“Thanks,” Kylo says as he receives he folder. “I don’t usually leave things behind like this. I don’t know where my mind was.”

“Good thing I was around to save the day.”

“Yeah.”

“You could show me your office,” she says after a long pause. “I’ve always been curious what it looks like. I imagined an evil lair tucked into a cave somewhere, but I guess this is okay too.”

“Okay,” he says with a laugh.

There are a few stares as they make their way through First Order headquarters. Kylo Ren’s office is, of course, nestled in a corner. Then again, perhaps it cannot be said to be “nestled” anywhere; it must be larger than Rey’s entire apartment.

Kylo takes his seat at an expansive glass desk, the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him framing him within a picture of the city.

“Is this what you expected?” he asks.

“More or less,” Rey says, as if she really did, as if she even knew offices like this existed. There aren’t any clues to his personal life—no pictures of family or of a girlfriend, no knick-knacks like the ones scattered across Rey’s own desk at the Resistance. He seems to have an interest in architecture, but other than that, there are no clues as to whom Kylo Ren is beneath the name.

She turns back to him and prepares to say something else, but her mouth snaps shut when she sees the expression on his face. She hears the door open without a knock and whips around to face it.

Hux is standing in the doorway, face twisted into a smirk.

“Snoke heard you had a guest. He’d like to meet her in his office.”

“Of course,” Kylo Ren says easily, but the gentle tone of his voice seems incompatible with the sharpness of his features.

Hux escorts them to another corner office, this one larger and grander and even more impersonal than the one they just came from.

Rey has seen James Snoke before. His picture appears in papers and in the news, his misshapen features marring page and screen. It isn’t the features themselves that make Rey so uncomfortable; it is the way they are arranged in his expressions, like he doesn’t really see anything outside himself. He looks, she thinks, like the embodiment of evil. The impression is even stronger in person, and Rey holds back a shudder.

“Just the man I wanted to see,” Snoke drones. He looks to Rey and smiles. “And his guest. I’m so happy you could join us today.” Snoke turns his attention to Hux, who has taken his place next to Snoke’s desk like a dog waiting for a command. “That will be all.”

Rey fights a smile at the way Hux’s face drops upon being dismissed. He shuffles out of the room, closing the door behind him.

“So this is the girl I’ve heard so much about,” Snoke continues. “You’re quite the rising star. We’ve been keeping an eye on you.”

Rey’s gaze snaps to Kylo, who looks uncomfortable and… guilty? Does he seem guilty? Has this—whatever this is—really been a ploy all along, then? The thought cuts through her heart like lightning.

“Rey was just dropping off some things from the Resistance,” Kylo says.

“Of course,” Snoke answers. “How kind of her.”

“It’s my job,” Rey says.

“And so it is.” Snoke considers her for a long moment. His eyes are clear and piercing, and they do not give away anything that lies behind them. Rey suppresses another shudder, steeling herself against whatever it is in Snoke’s gaze that makes her want to run.

“Speaking of my job, I should probably get back to it.”

“Well. It was a pleasure to meet you, Rey. I hope we will meet again soon.”

Rey responds only with a tight smile.

“I’ll show you out,” Kylo says.

“No need,” Snoke says. “We have business to attend to here. Hux will do it. He will meet you outside my office.”

Rey gives one final look to Kylo, who meets her gaze anxiously. Maybe this thing between them really was only real for her, then. Maybe the plan was to get close enough to her that she would reveal information about the Resistance. She can’t quite make herself believe that, though. She desperately wants to ask him, but it seems that will have to wait for their next meeting. She flashes him a small smile before turning towards the door.

Hux is, in fact, waiting just outside.

***

He stops glancing her way when he comes in. When he leaves, he seems to look in every direction but Rey’s. They don’t meet again, in the stairwell or otherwise. She even makes a point to slip out of the office and wait for him on the steps, but he never comes. When she finally returns to her desk, the conference room door is open, and he is gone.

It seems that Snap was right, again: Kylo Ren is more monster than man. Whatever spell it was that convinced her otherwise is broken now.

It hurts, more than Rey thinks it should. This thing between them might not have been friendship, but she thought it was the beginning of something like it. She had let him in, just a little bit. She had trusted him with a piece of herself. For some reason, she had felt like she could—like she should.

Weeks of seeing each other every day, and then… nothing.

Rey doesn’t make friends easily. Finn had been her first real friend, and he pulled her into the social circle that connected her to all of the people she would come to love. After a life of isolation, however, she finds it difficult to open up even to those closest to her.

So it hurts, that she opened up to him so easily only to be ignored. Thrown away, like a piece of trash. She tries to ignore the old pain that rises at the thought.

Rey is sensitive, but she is not meek. So she takes matters into her own hands.

Poe slips out of the conference room—one of his expensive bathroom breaks, no doubt—and Rey slips in, closing the door behind her. He looks up and starts at the sight of her.

“What the hell?” she snaps.

“You’re going to have to be a little more clear,” he says as he turns away.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she says. “I thought we were… I thought we were friends.”

“I’m here to do a job. You thought wrong.”

“It’s like you aren’t even the same person. Who was it, that I was talking to? Where is that Kylo Ren?”

“This is Kylo Ren. Right here. If you thought you saw anything different, you were mistaken.”

“I don’t believe you,” she growls. “I—”

The door opens behind her, and Rey and Kylo turn to it in tandem. Poe saunters in, stopping short when he sees Rey.

“Rey,” he sputters. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she says with a confidence she doesn’t feel. “I just thought I might have left some of my notes in here after our meeting earlier.

“Doesn’t look like you’ve had any luck.”

“Afraid not.”

“Maybe you should clean that desk of yours. I’m very curious what might appear in those piles.” He gives her a wink and walks past her to settle into a chair. As Rey walks to the door, she glances toward Kylo Ren one last time. He doesn’t meet her gaze.


End file.
